A TV movie production that showcased destination Malta recently captured a large audience in Germany.
The first film of the third season of crime series Ihr Auftrag, Pater Castell – Die Jesustafel (Your Mission, Father Castell – The Jesus Plate) was aired at 9pm on 13 May, Ascension Thursday (a public holiday in Germany), on the second public TV station ZDF.
According to a media business information service, an estimated 4.81 million viewers watched the programme, equal to a market share of 15.2 per cent. This was the best result ever for a programme in this series so far.
The weather on the day was quite cold and humid, a plus for displaying the contrast of a sunshine island with exceptional sights. While dates are fixed months ahead, the screening also coincided with the need for stronger advertising due to the volcanic problem, particularly since people are concerned about being stranded on islands making overland transport back home more of a problem.
In contrast to films that were just shot in but showing nothing of Malta (studio shoots), or where parts of Malta featured as somewhere else (e.g. Beirut, Baghdad), this Father Castell film showed viewers the sights of Malta in its own right. Even those critics who criticised the slightly predictable plot had nothing but praise for the location scenes of the film.
Particular attention was given to the Grand Harbour area. Kalkara was specifically mentioned, while Valletta and Vittoriosa were also used for many scenes, with Fort St Elmo featuring for the showdown. Other outside locations were Rabat, including St Paul’s catacombs, the Addolorata Cemetery crypts, and Kuncizzjoni Chapel in the rural limits of Rabat.
Apart from these places standing as locations in Malta, St Publius Church in Floriana featured as a church in Rome, and the Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta as a cardinal’s palace in Rome. Also all inside shots (cardinal’s offices) were apparently filmed in Malta. The British Hotel in Valletta, which overlooks Grand Harbour, was the only hotel filmed with restaurant and front shots. This is where a German civilian police detective and her assistant, who came to help Vatican detective Father Castell find the ‘INRI’ table in Malta and solve the conspiracy behind its loss from the Vatican, were based.
What is noteworthy is that none of the tourist areas – St Julian’s/Paceville, Bugibba/Qawra, or Sliema/Gzira were filmed. The producers seem to have preferred harbour, traditional town and village as well as countryside settings.
Crime TV series’ with priests or nuns have become quite a popular subgenre in Germany. The most popular one is the crime-comedy series Pfarrer Braun (Father Brown) series, whose character is loosely based on G.K. Chesterton’s one, is played by burly Bavarian actor and comedian Ottfried ‘Otti’ Fischer. The series takes the ‘criminalising’ Bavarian priest and his housekeeper, as well as the bishop, his driver, and a police officer to towns and villages in scenic areas of Germany.
High value for advertising Malta
From the point of advertising Malta, this was a very high value programme and the best mass-market promotion/advert for Malta in Germany of the last years. TV station ZDF also made the film available as high quality stream on the website of the TV series.
Unfortunately, neither MTA nor Air Malta, despite apparently having plenty of money available to sponsor football clubs or paying certain ‘ambassadors’ to greet people when boarding the plane in England, or taking photos with ‘celebrities’, which are then not printed in the source markets media but only in Malta’s, had any short advert before, let alone at the end of the film. Even though it would have been ideal, and apparently even though, in an effort to cut down on staff (see the MTA restructuring saga of the last legislature), one had outsourced such things to a private agency some years ago.
Placing an ad at the end of this film, just before the very popular ZDF Heute Journal news after this great 90-minute film, which was viewed by roughly five million viewers, should have brought much more than the dozens of adverts placed at other times that were unrelated to a programme.
However, on a positive note, recently there was a very nice MTA spot promoting great aspects of Malta on news channel N-TV at 10.30pm, but on the other hand sometimes such spots end up being screened on commercial stations at 10am.
A film showing people what they can see when in Malta, from the imposing sights of churches to the atmosphere of traditional towns and villages, or enjoying Mediterranean food in relaxed and tidy surroundings around Grand Harbour, is incomparably worth more at generating interest to find out more about a place and maybe go there, than just seeing the name ‘(Air) Malta’ for a split second with zero info in the sports news section of a 15-minute general news programme, with some viewers maybe not even knowing what this ‘Malta’ actually is.
Anyway, as an example, one could first have created, over the 90 minutes, the desire of wanting to go to this place that was featured all the time (Malta) and then Air Malta would have come in with a short spot (e.g. this programme was brought to you by Air Malta, flying to Malta from so many airports starting from this price) as the first choice of getting there, or the visitmalta website could have been promoted. After all firms for everyday products (like Zentis jam) do so on the same key slot (one slot between film and news) for other films, and here one would really have a direct connection.
These were not just about the usual contacts, but very high quality contacts with viewers seeing some of the best Maltese scenery/product for 90 minutes. Basically, all shots were daytime ones (except dinner near Grand Harbour) so people could really see what Malta has to offer. The contact was thus more intensive than a programme with a few seconds clip shots of Malta in the dark with the rest of the programme concentrating on just a stage where soon many would have forgotten where it was actually shot.
It is very important that film productions which show Malta in their settings, and also feature actual Malta, are particularly supported, as this is great advertising. Also, more ‘Maltese-Mediterranean character’ with towns, villages, harbour and landscapes, which is what tourists want, rather than shabby concrete areas with lager louts. The Grand Harbour area is a really unique place and its rehabilitation is also of highest interest for tourism development. So, apart from missing out on this advertising opportunity, the film did a really fantastic job advertising Malta. More of this kind should follow.